One Writer's Journey Through Parenting, Teaching, Writing, Faith, and Social Justice. A.E. Housman once claimed that "poetry is not the thing said, but a way of saying it." These are my attempts at a way of saying it. Too often, we erect walls where a few stoplights would do the trick. Consider these posts stoplights along the way.
Open up the world.
See it for its breadth, depth, beauty, pain.
Life is bigger than we think.
Smaller than we scoff.
Go out and touch it.
See it.
Swim in the oxygen that
Sits still unless we take
Staccato breaths
And big steps
Off cliffs, out of boxes,
Where the air is thin and
Meaning is thick.
Reach.
Teach.
Learn.
Burn.
Think not of thriving
Or of dying,
But of all that is
Waiting to come alive.
Lately, our two-year old, Benjamin, has taken to becoming a mini-Chris Farley in every aspect of his conversational life. Just like that fabulous persona on SNL where Farley portrayed an interviewer who began every question with "Remember when...?" Ben has been imbued with such a trait lately.
Ben's questions come at the most random times. When we're sitting eating dinner together, Ben will suddenly look up and out with blazing eyes and remark with rapture on his face: "REMEMBER DINOSAUR AT BARNES AND NOBLE!?"
This would be referring to a dinosaur book at Barnes and Noble where, when you push a button, the dinosaur selected subsequently responds with a resounding ROAR!
Tyler, Jennifer, and I all answer Ben, "Yes, we remember that dinosaur Ben!"
To which Ben replies, "Dino say ROAR at Barnes and Noble!"
At other times, we will, all four of us, be snuggled on the couch together ready to rock and roll with some reading before bed, and Ben will spontaneously pipe up, "Remember boy fell down!?"
It referred to an incident three weeks when, at the beach, a boy had fallen while he was running and began to cry with every bit of lung capacity he possessed.
"Yes, Ben. we remember that."
"That boy OKAY, that boy OKAY, that boy gon' to be OKAY."
To which we respond, of course, "Yes, Ben, that boy will be okay. he is all-okay!"
Jen and I have talked a lot lately about how fast everything seems to move. Rushing out in the mornings to get to school on time, rushing to get papers written and deadlines met, rushing to make dinner to get int the bath on time to read books to get to bed before OH MY GOSH HOW IS IT ALREADY 9;30!?
And with the rampant pace--and the rampant news cycle to keep up with, and all the beautiful and glorious work that we so long to do to make the world just the tiniest bit better--remembering seems to take a back seat to the NOW, to the DO, to the MOVE MOVE MOVE.
But maybe Chris Farley, and our little guy Ben, are on to something.
Maybe there's more to Remembering than meets the eye. Maybe slowing down and focusing less on the what-still-needs-to-happen and more on the what-work-has-already-been-done, we actually grow. Maybe it's in those spaces where we experience life close to the bone and learn from it, celebrate it, and remember it, that help us feel content and even peaceful.
As Sarah Lewis claims in her inspiring Ted Talk, after all, sometimes mastery isn't about the absolute best and the absolute perfection; rather, it's about coming close and celebrating that fact--even enjoying it.
Remembering reminds us that while we have much to do, we have also already done much. Remembering also reminds us that we do not need to make the same mistakes twice--we can learn from the errors we've already encountered and, by slowing our pace and taking the hand of a friend beside us, move forward with a little more wisdom.
I hope to practice the art of remembering a little more, and striving a little less.
